


Recalibrating

by pulse_in_the_pages



Category: Broadchurch
Genre: Asexual Alec Hardy, Character Study, Fluff, Gen, Introspection, Light Angst, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-17
Updated: 2019-09-17
Packaged: 2020-10-20 08:40:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,722
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20672480
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pulse_in_the_pages/pseuds/pulse_in_the_pages
Summary: Alec Hardy didn’t understand what all the fuss was about sex.Or, four times Hardy didn't know he was asexual, and one time he did.





	Recalibrating

**Author's Note:**

> After years of reading fic and skipping over literally every sex scene, earlier this year I finally realized that I'm asexual myself and suddenly the rest of the world started to make 1000% more sense. Then when I watched Broadchurch, I looked at Alec Hardy and was like, wow this man has the least sexual energy I have ever seen and I am 100% on board??
> 
> One month later, here we are.
> 
> Disclaimer: not all sexual/asexual people are alike and Hardy's fictional experiences are definitely his own and only partially my own – among other things I am a woman in my mid-20s and have never had sex or been in a relationship, let alone been married, so there are definitely some differences between us lol.
> 
> Further disclaimer: I'm very much not British, my bad/lmk if anything here sounds aggressively American. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

Alec Hardy didn’t understand what all the fuss was about sex. He had chalked it up to yet another one of those “being social” things that just didn’t come naturally to him the way they did for other people, like going to parties or making small talk with strangers about the weather. No one else seemed to be bothered that the mechanics of sex were, frankly, a bit weird, and he had seemingly grown up as the only teenage boy in Britain without a stash of dirty magazines shoved under his bed. He was exceptionally awful at flirting, something his (ex-)wife had teased him mercilessly about. 

All in all, it was just one more way of connecting with people, something that he had always struggled to do. He didn't think more of it than that. 

* * *

One day during his first year of university, Hardy found himself in the unfortunate position of getting lunch with one of his more irksome flatmates. They were joined by a couple of girls who lived down the hall, and the two girls along with his flatmate spent the entire lunch chattering on about classes and parties and who knows what. Eventually the two girls had to head off to class, so they said their goodbyes and left Hardy alone with his flatmate.

“They’re fit, eh?” the flatmate asked, watching their classmates’ retreating figures.

Hardy shrugged.

The flatmate looked at him incredulously. “You got eyes, mate? Didn’t you see Christine’s –” his hands came up to make a rather crude gesture in the chest area. “Massive.”

Hardy rolled his eyes at the crass display. He hadn’t really noticed, honestly. He’d been far more preoccupied with his salad, which he had been dismayed to discover had bits of chicken in it. He really didn’t like chicken.

“Alright, then,” the flatmate challenged when he didn’t reply. “What’s your type, if Christine and Marcy aren’t good-looking enough for you?”

Hardy let out a long-suffering sigh. He had never understood this question, why people around him seemed so obsessed with looks. He was fairly sure he didn’t have a _ type_, whatever that meant, but he cast about for an acceptable-sounding answer that would satisfy this bloody irritating person he was stuck eating lunch with. “Erm...brunettes?”

The flatmate huffed but didn’t argue further, so Hardy supposed his answer was reasonable.

* * *

“I’m going to give Daisy the sex talk,” Tess had announced as she walked into their bedroom one night. Hardy was settled on the bed, poring over some case files.

It took his brain a moment to process what she’d just said, but when he did, he looked up sharply, the files slipping through his fingers.

“Bit young for that, no?” he asked weakly. Daisy was just over ten years old, hadn’t even finished her last year of primary school yet.

“Not really, puberty’s just ‘round the corner. Why, how old were you when you first started thinking about sex?”

“Dunno.” Still slightly shell-shocked, he racked his brains, trying to think. He remembered other kids talking about sex and porn and all of that nonsense when he was a teenager, but he’d been far too socially awkward to have a girlfriend at that age, so there had really been no reason for him thinking about it then. When he was in his twenties, Tess had asked him out, and once they started getting serious it became clear that sex was the next logical step for their relationship. “When we started dating?”

She laughed, as if he’d just made a funny joke. (Alec Hardy rarely made jokes. This was not one of those times.) “Mm, how romantic.” She settled into bed next to him and gave him a quick peck on the lips. 

Hardy felt off-kilter, wrong-footed, but he wasn’t quite sure why.

“Well, it certainly wasn’t before I was bloody _ eleven_,” he groused after another moment’s consideration, crossing his arms defensively. Whenever it was, that much was definitely true.

She shrugged. “Maybe you were just a late bloomer. Girls mature earlier than boys anyway, you know. And it’ll only be the basics to start with, we’ll talk more as she gets older.”

He wrinkled his nose, but eventually grunted his assent. He supposed Tess would know better than he did about all this.

That odd sense of discomfort he was feeling was probably just from the thought of his little girl growing up faster than he had expected. Hardy resolved to ignore the feeling and buried his nose in his case files again.

* * *

Miller had somehow convinced him to come out for a drink at the pub after work one Friday evening. One moment he’d been in his office minding his own business, and the next they were sitting at the bar with two beers in front of them. (He still wasn’t quite sure how it happened.)

At this point in the evening, Miller was several drinks in, and Hardy had just started on his second pint. He was currently listening to her vent about some argument she’d gotten into with one of the other detectives earlier in the week.

“God, I could really use a good shag about now,” she said suddenly, apparently finished with her saga about the new DS and his penchant for heating up fish in the office microwave.

Hardy choked on his drink.

“What, not with you!” she said, pulling a face and shuddering melodramatically while he went into a Miller-induced coughing fit.

“Obviously,” he croaked, as the fit passed.

She looked him up and down appraisingly as he cautiously took another sip of his beer.

“What about you then? How long has it been since you’ve...you know?” she raised her eyebrows suggestively and grinned. “Any more cheeky dates?”

Oh, Christ, why did she want to talk about this with _ him_? “Miller, I...am your boss, technically,” he tried, setting his glass down, “and I’m fairly certain this counts as an inappropriate conversation for the workplace.”

“We’re not in the workplace right now,” she replied promptly, “and I’m asking you as a _ friend_, you wanker. When was the last time you had a proper shag?”

There was an expectant silence as she waited for him to answer, and she prodded him on the arm when he stayed stubbornly quiet. “Hmm, long time, then,” she said with that stupid grin on her face. “_Oooh! _D’you want me to help you find someone tonight? We can–”

“_No_, for God’s sake, _ please_,” he cut her off before she gathered too much steam for this new and horrifying idea, “not all of us think about sex all the bloody time.”

“Not thinking about sex all the time,” she countered, undeterred, “just right now. Oh come on, Hardy, don’t be so uptight! Have _ fun _for once!”

“Miller,” he replied dryly, “I’m not a fun person. I hate having fun.” She had to know at least that much about him by now, right?

“Hmph, _ Least Fun Cop in Britain. _I’d get that on a t-shirt.”

She sounded rather pleased with herself. He drank some more, not deigning to reply.

“But really,” she said after another moment’s silence, “how long has it been?”

“For...I don’t know, Miller,” he replied, exasperated. “I’m not really keeping track, am I?” 

It would have been sometime before the divorce. Even before the split they’d been having what Tess kept calling “intimacy issues,” but Hardy honestly hadn’t spared much thought to remember the last time they’d been together that way. It occurred to him that Miller would get into an even bigger fit if he admitted this – apparently she was a lot more invested in his sex life than he was.

She wrinkled her nose. “Well, _I’m _ certainly keeping track – it’s been _ months _ and endless bloody _ months _for me.”

“I just...look, it’s not exactly a priority for me right now.” He really didn’t understand why she looked so bewildered. Miller had seen him interact with other people. She knew what he was like. Was it so hard for her to believe that a post-divorce Alec Hardy, the least fun and most socially awkward cop in Britain, was not that interested in attempting to pursue an activity that was by most accounts both fun and social?

“So, what, you’re just...not _ bothered?_ At _ all? _” she asked incredulously. “Was the sex with Tess really that bad?”

Hardy’s face flushed. “_No, _ it was fine...I mean, it was _ good_, I suppose, I don’t know,” he pushed out uncertainly. He hadn’t really thought about it like that. “Ach, why are we even having this conversation, Miller?”

“Because we're drunk,” she replied, cheerfully nudging his glass with hers.

“‘M not drunk,” he protested sullenly. His now nearly-empty glass almost slipped through uncoordinated fingers as he tried to pull it towards him. He blew out a resigned breath. “Alright, I’m a wee bit drunk,” he conceded. Lost his bloody tolerance, that’s what happened. Stupid bloody heart.

Miller cackled, and he let her tease him shamelessly about getting sloshed after two drinks. The previous line of conversation was forgotten.

* * *

It was a sunny Saturday morning, a few weeks after the ill-advised pub outing with Miller. Hardy was standing in his tiny kitchen. He had just made himself some tea and was about to butter a piece of toast when he heard his daughter’s footsteps approaching behind him. 

“Morning, darling,” he said as he turned away from the kitchen counter, offering Daisy a one-armed hug and a quick kiss on the cheek. She was fully dressed in jeans and a jumper, a rarity considering it was before noon on a weekend. “Going somewhere?”

“Morning,” she replied cheerily. “Off to see the girls, do you know where my keys went?”

He shrugged. “Schoolbag?”

She scrunched up her nose and he turned back to the counter as she proceeded to the other room. He heard her upend the contents of her bag onto the dining table in an effort to find her keys. 

As he finished buttering his toast, he heard the telltale jingling of a keyring, and a triumphant “_Aha! _”

With his toast and tea ready, he picked up his plate and mug and turned around only for his daughter to breeze back into the kitchen, nab the slice of freshly buttered toast right off his plate, and then skirt quickly of his reach and to the door.

_ “Oi_, thief!” he cried indignantly. Why couldn’t anyone let him eat his toast in peace these days?

“Bye, Dad!” was her only reply. The door slammed shut behind her.

Ah, how he’d missed living with his daughter.

Hardy headed to the table, now strewn with Daisy’s schoolwork, and attempted to clear off some space so he could put his mug and (now-toastless) plate down. On top of the mess of papers was one with a rainbow border. Must have been from Daisy’s health class, he thought – it was an informational pamphlet about different sexual orientations. 

With nothing else to do, he paged idly through it as he sipped his tea. He marveled at how these things had changed since he was growing up – he was certainly never taught about what it meant to be gay or bisexual or transgender when he was in school.

On the last page, the bullet point _ Asexuality _ caught his eye. 

> _ A sexual orientation describing people who don’t experience sexual attraction. _

Hardy felt a strange, fluttering feeling in his stomach. Must be that he hadn’t gotten to eat his breakfast yet, since his _ darling daughter _stole his bloody toast.

It’d be rather nice to not ever have to deal with sex, he supposed. He hadn’t realized that was an option.

Too bad he couldn’t be asexual. 

Right? 

> _ A sexual orientation describing people who don’t experience sexual attraction. _

He’d had sex before. Hell, he’d been _ married _ before.

Wasn’t sexual attraction a prerequisite for having sex? What did sexual attraction even mean, anyway?

The pamphlet stubbornly yielded no additional information on this subject. A suddenly overwhelming curiosity got the better of him and before he knew it, he had grabbed his laptop and googled “asexuality.” 

> _ Asexuality is the lack of sexual attraction to others, or low or absent interest in or desire for sexual activity. _

He thought back to his conversation with Miller at the pub a few weeks ago, and how she’d been so shocked that he hadn’t cared about how long it had been since he’d had sex. 

He turned back to his laptop and the google search results, clicking through one of the top links and combing through it to try to learn more. The more he read about asexuality, the more confused and anxious he became. A lot of this sounded like him. Suddenly, it felt like the world was turning on its head.

Did this mean he wasn’t just an uptight, awkward misanthrope who was shite at reading social cues?

_ “You want to go...er..._relax _ a bit?” _

_ “What?” _

_ “You know.” _

_ “I don’t.” _

_ Tess rolled her eyes fondly. “I’m asking you to take me to bed, Alec.” _

_ “Oh. Right.” _

It wasn’t like he _ disliked _sex...he had appreciated the closeness, the intimacy that came with it when he had been married. But like he had told Miller, when it came down to sex versus whatever other shit life had decided to throw at him at any given moment, it ranked fairly low on his list of priorities. 

_ “You always do this, Alec, you just shut down whenever I try to talk about this!” _

_ “I’m not shutting down,” he protested, arms crossed tightly around his chest. “I’m just –” _

_ “We haven’t had sex in weeks, and you haven’t even _ mentioned _ it!” _

_ “Well I’ve been a bit bloody busy trying to solve a _ missing persons case_, Tess–” _

_ “There’s always a case! And I am working the _ same fucking case _ you are, so don’t keep using your job as an excuse.” _

_ “Look, I’m sorry I’ve been spending so much time at work,” he tried plaintively. From the look on her face, he couldn’t help but feel like he was missing something obvious, but he had no idea what it was. “But...it’s just _ sex_, Tess, I don’t understand why this matters so much!” _

_ He could immediately tell that he’d said something very wrong. The door slammed behind Tess as she stormed out of the bedroom, while Hardy sank heavily onto the bed and tried not to cry. _

Well, shit.

He did seem to have a fairly terrible track record with understanding sexual situations. 

He remembered just a few months ago, sitting with Daisy on the couch doing some paperwork while she was watching some idiotic television show that she liked.

_ “It’s bloody _ stupid_,” he couldn’t help but say when the episode ended. “Those two people keep talking the whole time about how much they hate each other and that one woman is _ engaged _ to someone else, and then suddenly they just decide to start kissing in an elevator? Doesn’t make any sense.” _

_ Daisy groaned. “Oh my God, Dad, I’m not going to explain hate sex to you.” _

_ “Oi, language!” _

_ “Okay, _ sex _ is definitely not a swear word, Dad.” _

Maybe this was why he was so bad at making friends with other men?

_ Tess had dragged him to the birthday party of one of her friends. An hour into the party, she’d found him skulking in the corner of the room. _

_ “At least _ try _ to socialize a bit, Alec. Make some friends, it’ll be good for you!” _

_ “All these men want to talk about is sex and beer,” he complained. He’d already abandoned one conversation with a group of men where the topic had turned to reminiscing about the sexual misadventures of their youths. _

_ “And that’s a problem? I was under the impression that that’s all men think about,” she joked. _

_ “Don’t know what that makes me, then.” _

(Well...maybe one of several reasons. He was reasonably confident that SOCO Brian wasn’t calling him “shit face” for his lack of interest in sex talk.)

He kept reading. What the hell did all of this mean?

* * *

Ellie was bored. The boys were out for the day to spend some time with their aunt, which was why she was sitting around the house on a Saturday morning with only her own thoughts to keep her occupied.

After a halfhearted effort to putter around and do some chores, she developed a hankering and decided to go pick up a pastry from the bakery. Once she got there, she ordered a wide selection and found herself heading over to Hardy’s place, baked goods in tow.

Upon her arrival, she peered through the glass door and was happy to see that her grumpy boss was, in fact, at home, seated at the table wearing a blue jumper and reading glasses and staring very intently at his computer screen. He was sitting facing her, but hadn’t noticed her coming. She tapped on the door to get his attention.

He looked up, visibly startled, and slammed the laptop lid shut. He seemed very surprised to see her but nonetheless gamely hurried over to slide open the door. “What are you doing here?” he asked, bemused, skipping over any sort of polite greeting in typical Hardy style.

She gave him and then the laptop an amused look. “Were you watching porn on there?”

“_What? _No,” he spluttered as she walked past him into the little flat.

“There’s no need to be embarrassed, everybody does it,” she grinned, rather enjoying seeing him off-balance. “Daisy home?”

“No. Miller, why are you here?”

“Thought I’d stop by to chat about the burglary case. I brought pastries.” She held up her paper bag of goodies.

“We closed that case,” he said, clearly confused.

She let out an exaggerated sigh as she set the bag down on the table. “Fine, Lucy’s taken the boys out for the day and I didn’t want to eat pastries alone. Happy?”

He blinked at her dumbly. She knew Hardy often got a bit of a deer-in-the-headlights look about him when forced into social interaction, but this was a bit much, even for him. 

“Are you...alright?” she asked hesitantly. Now that she thought of it, he did look a bit...shell-shocked. And even more tightly wound than usual.

He opened his mouth, then closed it again. He exhaled through his nose. “Tea?”

An obvious change of subject, but she didn’t press. “Yeah, sure,” she agreed easily.

He strode out of the room towards the kitchen, and when he emerged it was with two steaming mugs of tea. Avoiding eye contact, he set them on the table and they both sat down across from each other. Ellie grabbed a mug and extracted a sticky bun for herself from the pastry bag, then passed the bag off to Hardy. He rummaged inside, eventually pulling out a pastry of his own.

“Knew you’d go for the plain croissant,” she said, deliberately lightly, as Hardy stared at it like he’d forgotten how to eat one. She took a bite of her bun. “The least fun of all the pastries.”

For a long moment, he didn’t respond. His hands twitched around the croissant. Then, abruptly, “I think I’m asexual.”

“Oh!” She would admit she was surprised – she definitely hadn’t been expecting that. “Wow. Does that...what does that mean, exactly?”

He shrugged tightly, still looking down. “Means you’re not, er, ‘sexually attracted’ to people. No particular interest in having sex with anyone.”

“And that’s you?”

“Aye, seems so.”

“Huh.” She paused for a moment, then, “To be honest, I thought you were just really uptight.”

With that, the tension in his body loosened and he exhaled an amused breath. Then, he finally looked up at her with a rare wry smile. “So did I.”

She grinned. “Well, who says you can’t be both?”

* * *

Fifteen minutes later, Ellie had already polished off her sticky bun and was steadily working through a cherry Danish. Hardy was picking at the remaining half of his croissant with his usual amount of fuss, but the air of nervous tension about him she’d noticed earlier seemed to have abated.

“So, when did you figure it out?” she asked thickly as she swallowed a bite of her pastry.

He huffed a tiny laugh. “About an hour ago, I think.” Deftly he picked up a colorful pamphlet that was lying on top of a stack of what was presumably Daisy’s schoolwork and offered it to her. “Didn’t teach us all this when we were in school, eh?”

She hummed in agreement as she looked over the pamphlet and took another bite of Danish.

His hands wrapped around his mug and he took a small sip. “I thought...it just never made any sense to me, how everybody talks about sex, like it’s such a big bloody deal. Figured it was my shite people skills.” He didn’t sound upset now, just thoughtful. She rather liked this self-reflective side of Hardy.

“Might make dating a bit more complicated,” he mused after another moment. “‘M fine doing it, just...I s’pose I should tell the other person first, no? Since sex is apparently so bloody important to the rest of you.”

Oh dear, was he looking for dating advice? From her? “Erm...listen to your heart, I suppose?”

The corner of his mouth tugged upward. “‘Listen to your heart,’ now _ there’s _ a shitty platitude, Miller,” he scoffed, with an amused twinkle in his eye. “My heart’s a piece of _ shite_, isn’t it? It’s tried to kill me at least three times now, I’m not listening to that bloody thing.”

“Well, at least we know you’re not listening to your dick instead,” she quipped without thinking. Instantly mortified, she clapped a hand over her mouth, but Hardy was already roaring with laughter. Seeing him in this state, she couldn’t help but start laughing too.

“Ah, ta, Miller,” he wheezed as their laughter finally subsided, raising his cuppa in a mock-toast with one hand and wiping tears of mirth out of his eyes with the other. “Well done.”

“Thank you, sir,” she grinned, pleased beyond belief to have been the one to make her grumpy friend smile so freely.

“And, er," he cleared his throat awkwardly, making eye contact for just a moment before looking down again, "thanks for the pastry.”

She knew he wasn’t talking about the pastry.

“Anytime.”

**Author's Note:**

> Submitting to the mortifying ordeal of being known, if only pseudonymously.
> 
> Say hi on tumblr if you like! fun-but-not-too-fun.tumblr.com


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